RESEARCH OFFICERS IN PUBLICITY AND BROADCASTING DIVISIONS

Thursday, 7th May, 1970

Mr J. F. Conceicao asked the Minister for Culture what are the duties and responsibilities of the research officers in the Publicity Division and Broadcasting Division.

Mr Jek Yeun Thong: Research Officer, Publicity Division

The Publicity Division of the Ministry of Culture has one post of Research Officer, who is in charge of the Research Unit of the Publicity Division. The duties of this officer are to gather, collate, catalogue and index information from newspapers, periodicals and other publications, reference and source materials on political and public events, economic and social history and other related subjects relevant to current affairs, for the publications issued by the Publicity Division and for the general use of this Division.

Research Officer, Broadcasting Division

The `Research Officer' is in charge of the Research Unit which works in conjunction with the Newsroom and Central Productions Unit of Radio & TV Singapore. All these three units comprise the News Division of the Broadcasting Department.

The Research Unit is essentially a news information unit and maintains a modest quick-reference library as well as a collection of news clippings. It indexes a variety of periodicals on current affairs, and classifies and files items from local and overseas newspapers, and the RTS news bulletins. It also keeps the scripts of some radio and television programmes. The Unit has started a collection of photographs and other illustrations which may be required for TV programme productions.

The Research Officer is also responsible for the transcription of important speeches, interviews, press conferences, talks and forums (in both English and Chinese) recorded by RTS. In addition, he collects and collates information required for the production of some radio and television programmes, such as Breakfast Bulletin' and It's Happening in Singapore'. Lastly, the Research Officer acts as the departmental liaison officer in connection with current publicity campaigns.